Kouje strained against my hold for a moment and I threw all my weight into it, nearly dropping to the ground like a theatre actress pleading with the hotheaded hero. Then I heard Jiang stumbling backward, coughing wetly as the dust rose up all around in clouds from the road. The crowd around us muttered in disappointment, and Kouje caught me underneath my elbow, his stiff hands possessed of a sudden gentleness as he drew me to my feet.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and bent low to see me face-t o-face—but also because it was the closest he could get to kneeling. There was something in his eyes, in the absence of his rage, that betrayed a deeper misery. It wasn’t that he regretted what he’d done. It was that he’d known what it meant to do it, had understood all too well what a risk he’d be taking, and had done it anyway.
It wasn’t regret I saw in his eyes. It was shame.
I wanted to ask him why he’d done it if he’d known as well as I did how foolish it was. It didn’t solve anything. It only made matters worse.
“Your cheek,” I said instead, touching the bruised space just above the line of his jaw. “It’s going to hurt something awful tomorrow morning.”
Kouje bowed his head under my touch, and I knew that my acceptance of his actions was far worse than any scolding I could have given him. He swallowed something back, as if refusing to speak any words that weren’t the right ones. I knew what he wanted to say, of course. It was what Kouje had always said, especially when he could think of nothing else. My lord.
“It’s all right,” I said, willing it to be. I didn’t know how to shake him from his guilt without using his name, either, since it was all I’d ever used to recall him to himself. Instead, I squeezed his arm gently where I’d grasped it with such desperation earlier and repeated my useless words. “It’s all right.”
When Kouje lifted his head at last, he wore an expression I at least recognized. He was resolved.
“We have to get out of the street,” he said.
I nodded, glad for some action, any action, that would take us away from here, where the crowds had dispersed, but continued to watch us, from windows and from doorways. The streets were as good as empty as we made our way back to the noodle house. I didn’t realize how far we’d drifted from it in the chaos. I didn’t see Jiang, or Inokichi either, but I hadn’t really expected to.
I felt a momentary pang of guilt when I remembered how Inokichi had cleared the way for me to get to Kouje. I hoped that Jiang wasn’t so stiff and sore that it stopped them from reaching their destination, or gave them any trouble at the border crossing.
My heart sank. The border crossing. I didn’t know how we were going to get past it.
I followed Kouje all the way back to the front of the noodle house to where we’d tied our horse before I realized I was still holding on to his arm.
“We should leave,” he said, “before there’s any trouble.” The apology lay unspoken between us again, but there was no point in casting blame between the two of us.
We were all each other had.
“Any more trouble, you mean,” I said, trying valiantly to lighten the mood.
Someone snorted, the sound of it more like a laugh than anything else, and I whirled around, startled at the idea of having been overheard when I’d thought we were speaking privately.
Inokichi was standing with his back to us, brushing down the spotted horse tied up next to ours. I didn’t know how to put my finger on it, but I felt as though something about him had changed. It was odd, since we’d been traveling together all this time and yet I couldn’t shake the sense that I was looking at a stranger—a new man, somehow. He was still the same Kichi in appearance—unusually tall, his arms awkwardly long—but he didn’t look at all clumsy or unsure of himself. I wondered, with faint awe, how he managed that. He scratched at fleas and his hair was unkempt, but I’d never seen anyone so perfectly at home with himself. I’d been raised as a prince, but I felt I could have learned a thing or maybe two from Inokichi’s self-confidence.